2004/07 Yukon trip - Trek to the Arctic - |
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Today was Sandie’s birthday and her present was to spend all day surrounded by rocks, so we stopped off at various creeks and rivers to go sort through the rocks. At this time of year, the average creek is only about 10 feet wide with about 200 feet of beach so there were plenty of rocks to sort. We found agates and jaspers and calcite and asbestos, plus a whole load of stuff we couldn’t identify. I also found a stone cutting blade at Burwash Creek, obviously sharpened by chipping, but there’s no way of knowing whether it’s from the last century or 10000 years ago.
One likely spot was the Donjek River which was supposed to have geodes. This river was about 200 yards wide and roaring through its channels, so we couldn’t get to the gravel bars with all the rocks. We found a road that might have brought us down to a beach, but it was narrower than the camper and we had to push our way through the trees. It ended abruptly where the river had removed that section of bank. It was too muddy and precarious to risk turning around so the only option was to back out, with Sandie sitting in the back window guiding me around the trees and holes.
We found a much better spot at Edith Creek. We were able to drive along the creek bed and camp on one of the 
gravel bars, alongside a softly gurgling stream with billions of rocks to choose from. The day had been hot at times, and showery at others. We were still sitting outside in the twilight at midnight, but the rain then set in in earnest and forced us to retreat from the campfire.
Saturday 31st July
Surprisingly we had company during the night. A young guy came along the same creek bed, but saw us and camped a bit upstream. He was there for the fishing, for arctic grayling, which he said give a great fight to the fisherman. He was just fishing for the sport, carefully releasing the fish.
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